1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed towards backup systems for computer networks. In particular, the present invention is directed towards the implementation of a distributed, hierarchical backup system with a storage area network (SAN) system.
2. Related Art
Conventional backup devices commonly employ a monolithic backup and retrieval system servicing a single server with attached storage devices. These systems usually control all aspects of a data backup or retrieval, including timing the backup, directing the files to be backed up, directing the mode of the archival request, and directing the storage process itself through attached library media. Further, these backup and retrieval systems are not scalable, and often direct only one type of backup and retrieval system, such as a network backup or a single machine backup.
Due to the monolithic structure of these backup and retrieval systems, a slight change in the operation of any one of the several functional aspects of the backup and retrieval system requires a large amount of effort to upgrade or change the backup and retrieval system, including in some situations, reinstalling the backup and retrieval system in its entirety.
Also, the operation of a backup and retrieval system across a network containing several different types of hardware and operating systems presents significant challenges to an enterprise scale backup including maintaining data coherency, bridging file system protocols, and accessibility issues across multiple hardware and operating system configurations.
Other currently available backup solutions do not address scalability issues, hierarchy issues, and the problems inherent in the storage of different files in a network file system. Many other problems and disadvantages of the prior art will become apparent to one skilled in the art after comparing such prior art with the present invention as described herein.